Editor Interview: F(r)iction Contests

Eclectic art and writing

Printed in full-color on high quality paper, F(r)iction offers a completely unique and vibrant reading experience. Every short story, poem, flash fiction, and author feature is complemented by a custom illustration, fine-tuned to the nuances of each narrative. Our fabulous art team is dispersed all over the globe—from Denver to Mexico to Italy and beyond—and our pages are rich with international voices and perspectives. We also publish a graphic short story in every issue, including work from two Eisner winners and one Eisner nominee. Our emphasis on visual aesthetic is reflected in the writing we publish: bold, boundary-breaking works that take risks which set them apart from traditional approaches to storytelling.

It is always best to read an issue of F(r)iction before submitting, to get a more complete sense of the work we typically publish. We love literary fiction and poetry, but we also love speculative, genre-bending work, and it's always fun when those genres overlap. If your writing is taking risks and has had a tough time finding a home elsewhere, consider submitting to F(r)iction!

The ideal submission is one that has been copyedited, contains (almost) no mechanical errors, and requires very little editing upon acceptance (though we absolutely love working with our authors). While we are not very fond of what have now become cliche topics in our submission pile—divorce, infidelity, infertility, college life—we are interested when these topics are rendered in an original and unique way. If the language is lovely, the narrative is structurally sound, and the content feels wholly new to us, that submission is solid gold.

We always appreciate a cover letter, but that's never our primary focus when reading submissions. We approach previous publication credits in much the same way. Part of our mission as a nonprofit is to provide an outlet for new and emerging writers to earn those necessary publication credits—we aim to publish debut authors alongside big, recognizable names, to help writers gain clout and prestige in the industry. As a result, we are not too preoccupied with publication history, though we are always curious about writers' individual experiences!

It depends. We can usually tell within the first couple of pages whether or not we want to move forward with a piece, but we often do encounter works that snag us, even if we suspect we won't publish them. We tend to read those submissions through to the end and really toil over whether or not to move forward with publication.

Our editorial team has four to five editors. We each have a number of submissions assigned to us each week, and we aim to respond to submissions within a month's time. Typically, we go through one to two rounds of edits on stories that we want to pitch to the editor-in-chief, and we always get a second opinion from one of our colleagues before making that final pitch. As a result, our editorial process is often quite collaborative, which allows each individual editor to hone in on their distinct skills while strengthening our team as a unit. Each editor is probably working on three to five stories at a time, though that number tends to shift quite a lot.

It depends on what the piece requires, but we typically provide one to two rounds of both content edits and line edits. The author always approves the final edits before the story goes on to publication.